Good evening. My name is Kathleen Richardson and i am the dean of the school of journalism and mitigation at Drake University. Welcome both to the members of our audience here at the Science Center of iowa and des moines and to those of us or those of you who are joining us by lifestream. This year we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of journalism education at drake and from the beginning in 1919 our program has been characterized by a close relationship with our profession and by service for our community. We are very proud to continue that tradition by cohosting the conversation tonight. We have experts on the front lines of this pressing public issue. This event is brought to you through a collaboration between Drake University and sidelined. Sideline is a philosophically funded free service for journalists based at the American Association for the advancement of science in washington dc. It connects reporters to scientists in order to promote more credible Accurate Research based news stories. In fact, were just wrapping up a two and half day camp at drake in which political journalists from around the country received briefings from experts on science issues that will be prominent in the president ial campaign. The program was supported by the Schmidt Family foundation. Id like to knowledge and think Drake Universitys academic leader provost who is herself, a scientist. Also the director and former Washington Post science reporter in the entire team of scientists and science litigators who have worked so hard to organize this entire event. Finally, i want to remind folks both here in the hall and those watching remotely that they are welcome to ask questions and join the conversation via twitter. Use the United States of climate. For those here in the hall, please turn off any ringers on your phone and please do not use flash photography. With that i am very pleased to introduce tonights moderator. Better and science reporter miles obrien. Miles is an independent journalist who covers science, technology and aerospace. He is a science correspondent for pbs news hour, a producer, director and writer for pbs nova series and an aviation analyst for cnn and a correspondent for the National Science foundation, sciencefiction series. Please join me in welcoming miles to the stage. [applause] thank you, kathleen. Thank you. Its great to be here but its great to see you all. I have our panelists get seated while im talking and its good to be back in des moines. I was just reminded him my first trip to des moines was in 198080 going i got to caucus around that was my first taste of deepfried butter. I still remember it. I can conjure up whatever that was that happened after the deepfried butter. [laughter] as you may recall, if that did not go so well for mike to caucus and he suggested to court farmers the plant more and ive and massachusetts, they just dont get it. I was looking at states climatologist and how many are you are familiar with the job states climatologist . I would say its about half maybe. There are two states in the nation that do not have a state climatologist. Tennessee and massachusetts. Massachusetts. Boston boston is almost underwater now for gods sake. Get these guys on the stick here. We have three allstar state climatologist here and we will ask them about what they do and what they hear and what the evidence they are seen from the front lines a lot of people think about Climate Change as this giant monolithic single, but its a million little problems and fought the local specific way. Sure, there are big things we can go after but a lot of Little Things we can do in these guys are in the trenches dealing with the Little Things and addressing the concerns of their neighbors. Ultimately the people that i listen to the most of the people closest to potential denials and skeptics. Or the people who just dont know what to do about it. Down in the end is martha, she drove three hours from nebraska to be here and we dont know what her Carbon Footprint was and will do the math later but it was worth it. I flew so im screwed. Then in between is our hometown favorite, justin, state climatologist for iowa. Right beside me here is kathy who is now from North Carolina but recently was an organ which is an interesting switch, i suppose. Big move. Yeah, but probably some similarities. All that stuff. Its this mirror image. Without going too deep into the bureaucratic machinations of a state climatologist does lets run through its like being the help desk for people in State Government and businesses and as an arbiter of good science that kind of thing that im curious who you consider your clients to be. Why dont you start. Climate touches everything and everyone. I found a job where i get to metal in everyones affairs. Its perfect for me because im so interested in learning about many things so you become an expert weekly and things you never thought you would think about the things you do not go to school for. Im a history major so i understand how this works. I work with a lot of what i call decisionmakers. Someone whos making a decision the climate will be a factor in it and a lot of water managers and a lot of farmers and people in the public who just want to know whats going on. Anymore you want to add to that . Well, being the state climatologist by what my clientele and our stakeholders, farmers may talk to farmers everyday farmers are very intuitive and been on their lands forever so talking with them they see whats happening and they see changes in the weather and it affects it affects what they do on a daytoday basis. Having information for them, climate data, weather data, letting them know theres a 40 chance that next month will be above average temperature wise or precipitation wise just to give them some sort of guidance moving forward because somewhat reassuring being in a variable state weatherwise. Would you add any more to that . Ditto to what justin said move for many miles to the west and thats what i deal with in nebraska. You never know who will call when you pick up the phone. One day i showed a group of second graders to one of our weather stations and that afternoon i gave an interview to Fuji Television about the flood of 2019 and nebraska. That gives you an idea of the range of people the community with on this very complex topic of Climate Change. Lets talk about that flood in the moment and the wild weather just want to note its interesting to me that the two ladies on the panel are academics inside academic institutions with all the protections we associate with that for them to say whatever they want to say despite whatever the governor may think. This gentleman in the middle is a state employee. Youre a little more vulnerable, i guess. Lets just first of all, when it comes to the nihilism the governor of the baxa nebraska, problems. Much pressure is brought to bear on you to say one thing or another and can you just do your job. Just so far i can do my job maybe until tonight. [laughter] i just ruined that. Was this something i was not supposed to ask about . Deepfried butter confuse me. [laughter] no, i find people care at all levels whether farmers and ranchers or cities across the state of nebraska or Natural Resource districts that manage Groundwater Resources but everybody is talking about it and cares about it wants to know what will happen and what are the solutions. I find in my role i dont feel any sort of pressure above to speak a certain way. Good. Let it rip. Justin, youre a state employee in your boss, the governor, is very much in a renewable but not so much into believing Climate Change has a human component to it. Does that affect in any way how you do your business . No, im the weather archivist for the state. I have one in 47 years of observations going back into the 1800s and factbased observations that i get those observations, not alternative tax but real facts. Any level of the government and i dont feel impeded in my position. Good. Glad to hear that. Kathy has the benefit of the governor who is in the forefront of suggesting drastic action to fight Climate Change but what that like for you . It has been for weeks but the honeymoon has been awesome. [laughter] one of the reasons i took the job in North Carolina we had great things going on in oregon but i was so encouraged by what was happening in the state that the state obviously taken Climate Change seriously. The outer banks and coastal flooding and huge hurricanes are undeniable. Been able to be a part of that was exciting for me. That a big part of the yeah, absolutely. Personally this is the biggest problem of my generation in a bigger problem by me but also professionally asking tough questions and trying to come up with solutions. As long as were on the dangerous political shoals lets keep going, shelby . With the complete lack of leadership from washington that we have right now and going in the opposite direction does that put more pressure or more response ability of the states and localities to do something and is there evidence that is happening . Yeah, i think it does. Some of the best solutions are the local solutions because you know whats going on in your area you know the best way to solve it. Im just finishing up a project where he worked with 11 cities across the four state region including three in nebraska where theres incorporating climate projections into their planning. Planning documents so Hazard Mitigation plans, emergency plans they are looking at what will water look like what the temperature will look like and do we need cooling shelters and snow removal equipment and all these things that the city cares about going into the future they are looking at Climate Change and incorporating that. Is that optional . Is that something theyre forced to do . No, these are cities that chose to join the project and work with us to develop localized climate reports and tools for them Going Forward to enhance their decisionmaking. When i thought was happening at the epa soon after the Trump Administration came and i was trying to be optimistic and the more the grassroots would be better in a sense because to the extent theres an absence of leadership in washington that might mobilize people in washington to do more and i thought i was pollyanna but justin, what would you say . Corn roots here but no,. [laughter] iowa farmers are resilient individuals. They dont rely on anybody but themselves. Being told what to do is not something that goes over. Giving discussions to various groups across the state farmers and Elementary School kids each has a different unique idea or view on what is going on. Farmers again i talk to them often they know, they know what to do in the solutions that the department of agriculture puts out, cover crops working for carbon Carbon Sequestration and ease of the solutions we do on state level that will start in fact moving forward and up. It has to be pretty pragmatic when you talk to a farmer, right . A campy stuff without the road but has to be something that should help them in the relative nearterm and that might be a bit of a problem for climatologists whose thinking and longer terms. Sure, we talk about whether a lot which is shortterm variations in the atmosphere. Farmers are very seasonal based because that their livelihood during the growing season they want to harvest and looking forward seasonally give them an idea of what they can expect to utilize for example moving out further to a seasonal and yearly and multiyear is some idea of solutions that they can start putting in place now that will benefit them moving forward. Kathy, what about you . I think rahm emanuel said never waste a good crisis and we have a crisis of leadership in washington on Climate Change and is that an opportunity and a sense to do something meaningful at the state level . After four weeks, what have you done . [laughter] you dont have it solved yet . Even when the federal government is moving its not our most nimble institution and when you think about large social issues its the states that start flipping and then you move as a country to the direction of addressing the issue and with Greenhouse Gas mitigation absolutely the states have a role to play and in showing leadership and california has been but other states are trying as well. On the other patients are thus prepared for the effects of Climate Change are becoming more resilient with local and state solutions are absolutely the ones that are going to stick because the people in the communities need to come to the table. So, martha you mentioned briefly the 2019 floods. Lets talk about whether the floods or talk about the fire that devastated paradise or a hurricane, whatever it is, to what extent is the strong evidence of the weather is changing . And how it impacts the questions and who you are hearing for and for that matter, the reception you get when you talk to the public is it changing out there . My sense is that it is somehow. Yeah, right. One thing you can do first of all use that as a tool to split the difference between weather and climate. Just because climate what do you say . I say depending on the audience as a weather is your atbat and climate is your batting average. Whether is your mood, climate is your personality. Thats a good one. Go ahead. So for the floods can we talk about the events leading up to it, the setup which is a big factor in the flood that did happen. Wasnt just a storm. It was what happened leading up to that. You talk about hot springs have gotten wet or overall, how that will continue in a warmer world. That were typed into Climate Change. So the problem i discovered in covering this for about 25 years is, there is the Scientific Method and scientists, well, they dont talk like the rest of us. They are constrained by both things like peter review and evidence and all that kind of stuff. What it does at times is they historically have been extremely reluctant to connect to all the stuff them to say this tornado, hurricane of what it might be as a climate link. Been hard to get out of that scientist or is that changing . We were affected by the flooding 2019 also. I have had the second wettest year on record, 1993 being the wettest. We were three inches short of breaking that record. Third wettest fall, third wettest spring. Seventh wettest spring, third wettest winter. All that goes into the largescale circumstances that lead to a stork flooding. And i what we had come 2008, 2011, 2019, these three floods in ten years. Pretty soon you have a stack of evidence thats hard to counterfeit would you go along with that . Has begun to the point where, are the scientists a little bit unencumbered by some of the constraints they felt in the past to make these links . So attribution sides, which is seeing the finger prints the Climate Change on events, has really moved along in the past two years. Just last week are colleagues put out a paper on european heatwave. Saying Climate Change made this more likely. Ten years ago when a reporter would call up and say, you know, you cant tie just one event to Climate Change. I think were past that and seeing gateways, big fires at west again from and think Climate Change is here and its interface. Its just the opposite of journalism. We go for the sexy lead and you do all the disclaimers. At the bottom use by the way, we are screwed, Something Like that. Kind of bug goes in a paper. [laughing] when you pick up the phone, say what are you what are they asking. Was people call and ask about their daughters wedding. [laughing] of course. I hope you charge. Depends on my mood. But a lot of people, i find a lot of people just want to talk about it. There was somebody to talk to you. Im on the other end of the line and there are either worried, concerned can looking to buy a house in oregon or North Carolina or if its somebody who actually is making a decision, they want to sit down and get to know each other and want me to listen to what theyre working on. Its a Big Mental Health issue with farmers in the midwest, given the variability that weve seen in conditions just going from last year to this year, now moving into trying to meeting between web record wetness. Farmers, they call, yes, i do a lot of event planning, but they want some reassurance that, hell, my crop is coming up already, but they just get somebody to talk to. It weighs on you but you are there as a service. You are there trying to make things better with giving them the proper information. Martha, weddings and bar mitzvahs for you, too . Yes. And so that to my primary climate questions we get are, whats the forecast for the upcoming season. So seasonal scale, climate outlook. Presumably these would be agriculturally interested people . Yes. Or baseball season . Right. Other going to be wetter or dry, warmer or colder over all, and timing of precip events for example, that the other question increasingly is Climate Change. What will it mean for nebraska, what can we grow in nebraska . What will it mean for fisheries and wildlife. What will it mean for the cities. People want to know what can i do about it . Thats a long phone call. When you get a question like that, come right . Its not a simple answer and climate impacts, theyre very intricate and a lot of interconnections. You would have to get to know wh